Excise clearances of green diesel in November 2022 were 11% lower than 12 months earlier, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has confirmed.
In data released today (Monday, January 16), the CSO said that volumes of green diesel – referred to as marked gas oil – cleared during November 2022 were the lowest for that month since 2015.
In November 2021, excise clearances of green diesel stood at 91 million litres. In November 2022, this figure was 82 million litres.
Meanwhile, clearances of petrol in November 2022 stood at 79 million litres, an 8% increase on the 73 million litre figure for November 2021.
However, this was 6% lower than the pre-Covid figure of November 2019, which was 84 million litres.
Clearances of autodiesel in November 2022 were 310 million litres, a slight increase of 0.4% on November 2021. The November 2022 figure was 2% down on the November 2019 figure.
Clearances of kerosene in November 2022 were 4% lower than in November 2021, falling from 99 million litres to 96 million litres.
The data used to compile these figures mainly relate to Revenue’s monthly excise clearance volumes.
The CSO points out that the use of some fuels is more seasonal than others, and therefore there is usually a greater degree of variation in volumes throughout the year for those seasonal fuels.
Price changes, weather and storage capacity can also have an impact on monthly clearances.
CSO figures on food exports
Also today, the CSO has released data on goods exported from and imported into Ireland in November 2022, including agri-food produce.
In November, the value of exports of food and live animals stood at €1.36 billion, an increase of over €200 million on the November 2021 figure of €1.16 billion.
This represented an increase of 17%.
The exports by commodity can be seen in the table below:
Commodity November 2022 (€million) November 2021 (€million) Live animals 68 69 Meat and meat preparations 422 384 Dairy products and bird eggs 421 302 Fish and other seafood 53 57 Cereals and cereal preparations 68 55 Vegetables and fruit 29 34 Sugars and honey 12 11 Coffee, tea, cocoa and spices 42 41 Animal feed stuffs 51 41 Miscellaneous edible products 193 164
These figures are in line with data from Bord Bia which was released last week.
In its Export Performance and Prospects Report 2022/2023, the Irish food board outlined that the value of Ireland’s agri-food exports – including food, drink and horticulture products – increased by 22% in 2022, reaching a new record high of €16.7 billion.
According to Bord Bia, the significant increase of €3 billion in agri-food exports compared to 2021 levels can be attributed to both rising unit prices – due to inflation and rising input costs – as well as an increase in the volume of goods exported.